Welcome to Life
by iheartvolume
Summary: Book 6: What if Draco Malfoy accepted Dumbledore's offer for help? What happens when he is suddenly thrown together with his enemies while trying to overcome the death of his mother and trying to find his place in the world?
1. Welcome to the Burrow

Chapter 1: Welcome to the Burrow

When he finally woke, Draco didn't have the slightest clue where he was. He was in a bed, in a completely unfamiliar room. He tried to sit up, and his efforts were rewarded with a huge pain shooting through his body, seeming to come from nowhere and fill every centimeter of space in his body, causing him to yell out from the intensity of it as he fell backward onto the mattress. Cringing as the slightest of movements brought him immense discomfort, he tried to recall the events prior to his blackout, thinking maybe he'd be able to remember where exactly he was.

As he thought, the memories came flooding back, clearly and vividly: putting the plan into action… finally making his way into Dumbledore's office… disarming the wizened old headmaster and… and… finding that he just couldn't do it. Knowing in his heart that he wasn't a killer, that there was no way he could ever… Dumbledore's calming voice, the voice of reason… telling Draco and Potter what to do, how to escape… and then seeing Dumbledore killed, right before his very eyes, by Severus Snape, the man Draco had looked up to for so many years. Seeing Dumbledore's body, the body of one of the greatest wizards ever to have lived, seeing his body just thrown out the window like some sort of garbage…

Draco suddenly felt sick, sicker than he'd ever felt in his life. He could so clearly hear Dumbledore's voice, see his eyes, pleading with Snape for his life. The image was ingrained on the backs of Draco's eyelids, making it impossible to escape. Eventually, succumbing to the pain, he fell into a fitful sleep, haunted by dream-visions of Dumbledore whispering, "Draco, please… please… Draco…" followed always by a flash of green light.

"No, no… NO!"

"Draco. Draco! Wake up, dear."

Slowly Draco opened his eyes once again to a middle-aged, redheaded woman looking down at him with concern in her eyes.

"It was just a dream, dear, just a bad dream," she tittered. The woman fussed about, handing him a pain-relieving potion and instructing him to drink. When he had finished, she handed him a tray of food.

"You must be hungry," she smiled kindly at him.

Draco was still confused as to his whereabouts and the identity of this lady.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Oh, right, of course you wouldn't recognize… so silly of me. I'm Mrs. Weasley, Ron and Ginny's mother," the woman responded, smiling kindly again.

Draco bit his tongue just in time to prevent himself from making a rude comment to Mrs. Weasley, remembering that his very life was now in the hands of his enemies, and figuring that it would thus be imprudent to offend them.

"And… Where am I, exactly?" he asked slowly, still trying to process that this woman, who was herself his adversary- well, _former_ adversary, was being so kind to him, almost as if he were her son.

"This is the Burrow," she proclaimed brightly. "Our home. It's being used as one of the Order's hiding spots at the moment… Once you've finished eating, you can come downstairs and I'll give you the grand tour. Some of the Order should be over later; several of them are very keen on speaking with you. I keep telling them to let you have your peace, you've been through so much, but they insist…"

Mrs. Weasley's brow furrowed as her face momentarily displayed her annoyance at the mysterious Order members' refusals to comply with her request on Draco's behalf, but the look was fleeting. A second later she was back to her cheerfulness, urging Draco to enjoy his breakfast and come down when he was ready.

Draco's eyes followed her as she left the room. He still could not process her kindness toward him. He had been her enemy, he'd fought against everything she stood for, endangered the lives of her children, and yet… and yet she was treating him like a son. His mother would never have done anything of the sort. It could not be denied that Draco was the most precious thing in the world to his mother, but she was no less a Death Eater than his cold, uncaring and abusive father. Any enemy of hers would never have been given a second chance; would never have made it past her doorstep, let alone welcomed into her home and cared for…

Thus, it made absolutely no sense to him that Mrs. Weasley had so easily forgiven him for everything he had done. There must, he decided, be some sort of catch, be something else lurking behind her amiable demeanor. He would definitely need to keep a wary eye out now, because if he had learned anything in his lifetime surrounded by the Dark Lord and company, it was that no one could ever be trusted. Your closest adversary could so easily be your greatest foe.

Draco had learned that lesson early on, and had fitted his ethics to suit it. He was of the "Look after number one" school of thinking, and who could blame him, he wondered? With everything he had been through in his short seventeen years of life, who could blame him for being a survivalist?

At this point Draco looked down and realized that he'd finished off the entire tray of food already. He hadn't realized how hungry he'd been, but he definitely felt much better with food in his stomach, and the pain-relieving potion had kicked in.

He lifted himself from the bed and walked over to a mirror on the wall. Horrified by his disheveled reflection (some of his Malfoy ways were harder to ditch than others), he immediately attempted to brush his hair down with his fingers and brush the dust and grime off his robes, flattening out as many wrinkles as he could.

Realizing, with a sigh, that he was fighting a losing battle, he stood for a moment, leaning on the dresser, pondering what to do next.

The only option, it seemed, was to make his way downstairs and face whatever might await him. He sighed again, this time at the prospect of having to deal with a group of people he knew didn't trust him, or particularly want him there for that matter. But he knew he wouldn't be able to stay holed up in the room forever, nor did he particularly want to.

Making one last-ditch attempt to better his appearance, he sighed once more, turned from the mirror, and made his way through the door and down the stairs to whatever might be waiting for him.

* * *

Draco finally reached the bottom of the stairs, and found himself walking through a hallway filled with decades of Weasley family portraits. He was amazed by the sharp contrast between the images that surrounded him and the family portraits that lined the halls of Malfoy Manor. While the Malfoy family portraits were so serious and often somewhat scary, as if to put the fear of the Dark Lord himself into any passersby, these portraits of various red-haired Weasley relatives were bright and cheerful, like Mrs. Weasley herself. Everyone was smiling, some even waving as he passed, all looking so content and happy.

This made no sense to Draco. How could these people be so happy? They were dressed in old, secondhand robes, nothing like the clothes his family wore. They were dirt poor, could barely afford to send the kids to school… But yet, they seemed content, relaxed, and carefree. How was this possible? It was an act, Draco decided. In the same way that his parents would never show fear, would always maintain an air of prudishness- no, respectability- in this same manner, the Weasleys would never betray the unhappiness they must possess due to their lack of gold.

Draco shook his head, clearing all these thoughts from his mind. Thinking of the Weasley family only made him think of his own parents, a subject he was trying to keep his mind as far away from as possible. He wasn't ready to face his father's disappointment and anger, his mother's angst, the shame that he had undoubtedly brought upon the Malfoy name in the eyes of the people who mattered most. Not that they could really be shamed anymore after last summer… It was too much for him to bear, so to occupy his mind once more he returned to the photographs on the wall, studying them more closely just for something to do.

One portrayed a young boy and girl, Draco guessed nine and eight years of age, respectively, chasing each other around the yard on broomsticks, laughing happily. He recognized them as Potter's friend and the Weaslette. Another one showed two identical red-haired boys squirting water at each other out of trick wands. They, too, were full of cheer. As he made his way through the hall he found himself confronted with picture after picture of smiles, laughter, amiable expression. Draco felt something unpleasant welling up inside of him; all the cheerfulness was making him almost ill. It was nothing like what he was used to.

Unable to take any more of the happy illustrations surrounding him, he escaped from the hall and made is way into what he guessed was a kitchen. He'd never really been in one before, as he had been raised never to associate with house elves (beyond barking orders and doling punishment), and the house elves had always brought him anything he might have desired from the kitchen, so he had never seen any reason to bother entering. But now here he was, in a kitchen, the size of which he was sure paled in comparison to the kitchen at home. The Malfoys were always entertaining and throwing parties, so a large kitchen was necessary to serve so many guests.

At any rate, the kitchen he now stood in was definitely quaint. There were dishes washing themselves in a sink underneath a window that looked out onto a sprawling green yard. There were cabinets filled with more dishes, and some with books on various subjects from household spells to recipes for desserts. On the counters there were knives and wooden boards, upon which lay chopped vegetables. There was a big box-shaped thing in the corner with circles on top. On one of the circles sat a pot, the contents of which were being stirred by a wooden spoon. It must be an oven, he decided at last. He'd never seen one, but he knew what they looked like in theory.

Draco heard voices coming from the next room, and, realizing it would look suspicious if he seemed to be lurking or eavesdropping, he decided to make his presence known, and stepped forward into the room.

* * *

Draco entered what he immediately recognized as the dining room (the large table and set of chairs _were_ a bit of a give-away). Seated around the table were several people he knew, including the Golden Trio and the Weaslette. There were two twin redheads seated at the table as well, more Weasley children. He vaguely remembered them from Hogwarts; they were always causing trouble. A snide comment came into his head about Mrs. Weasley not knowing when to quit when it came to reproducing, and Draco tucked it into the back of his head in case he later needed an insult to throw at Ron, whom he and his Slytherin friends had dubbed "the Golden Weasel" in reference to his friendship with "the Golden Boy". Granger had been similarly dubbed "the Golden Beaver" because of her slightly large two front teeth, and not being content to stick with the "the Golden Boy" for Harry, he had become "the Golden Potty". That one, which Theodore Nott had constructed, had brought roars of laughter from the Slytherin table.

He pushed these thoughts from his mind and returned to his study of the faces at the table. Upon further survey Draco was able to recall the werewolf Lupin, who had been his Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher in Third Year; and then, with a shudder, Mad-Eye Moody, who had also been his DADA teacher, in Year Four. Well, sort of. The rest of the lot he didn't recognize: a girl with shocking pink hair seated next to Mad-Eye, another lady with graying bronze hair, and a large, dark-skinned man seated on Moody's other side.

The dark-skinned wizard had been talking when Draco entered the room, and continued to talk, unaware of Draco's presence, until Lupin gave a small cough and the room's inhabitants turned to look at the newcomer.

"Oh good, you made it down alright, I was starting to get a bit worried, thought I might send Ron up to check on you…" Mrs. Weasley jabbered.

At that last bit Ron made a face akin to having eaten something sour.

Mrs. Weasley's jabber died down, and there was an awkward silence for a few moments. Draco knew that those in the room weren't quite sure what to make of him, which was just fine considering he didn't really know what to make of himself either.

"Well." It was Mrs. Weasley who broke the pained silence again. "I _was_ going to give Draco a tour of the house, but it's nearly dinner, so… Oh, I know!" There was a bright smile on her face and all children in the room knew that could only mean one thing- a Mrs. Weasley scheme. "Ron, Harry, Hermione, why don't _you_ lot take Draco on the tour, and I'll go get dinner ready. Ginny, you can go too."

"Or, I could get din-" Ron began, but he was cut off by a glare from Mrs. Weasley that Draco thought with a shiver would be neck-and-neck with any stare his own mother was capable of. No, he told himself, you can't think about her.

The Golden Trio and their tag-along had made the tour as quick as possible; it seemed that all of them were eager to be rid of Draco as quickly as possible, and Draco wasn't surprised, considering what he knew they thought of him. They would stop just in the entryway of a room, tell him what it was, and move on. Short, to the point. Draco could have cared less, but he had a feeling that it wasn't a good idea to be on Mrs. Weasley's bad side, so he complied.

Throughout the mini-tour, Ginny continually glanced at Draco as though expecting him to begin making snide comments about her home at any moment. Draco decided he wasn't going to give them that satisfaction, mostly just to throw them off a bit.

The tour ended rather quickly to Draco's relief, and Ron and Harry dragged Ginny and Hermione up to Ron's room to converse, while Draco, left to his own devices, stepped outside and walked into the large field surrounding the Burrow, where he laid in the grass with his eyes closed, enjoying the pure sensation of being alive, until Mrs. Weasley's voice could be heard calling everyone to dinner.

* * *

After dinner Draco retired to his room and spent the remainder of the evening staring out the window, trying to think of anything but Dumbledore's death, his parents and the Dark Lord. He knew he needed a plan of action ready for his present situation; it seemed unlikely that he would be allowed to stay, if the Golden Trio had their way, which he was sure happened fairly often around here. After all, bloody Saint Potter was the rallying point of the whole cause, "The Chosen One" or some load of garbage like that.

After a few hours and no ideas, Draco finally decided that he would just have to play it by ear, and make it up as he went along. Draco detested the idea, as he always liked to have plans ready, to know what he was going to do. He wasn't one for spontanaeity in any form. But seeing as he wasn't exactly sure what was going happen to him, he couldn't really formulate much of a plan. Maybe someone would take pity on him and let him stay; he doubted it. He was a Malfoy, his father was a Death Eater. These people were his enemies. If any of them had shown up in Death Eater territory they would have been tortured and killed, and Draco could only hope that these 'Order' people wouldn't do the same to him. Finally giving up on any sort of plan, he slipped under the covers and moved into a fitful sleep full of unsettling dreams.


	2. Welcome to Grimmauld Place

Chapter 2: Welcome to Grimmauld Place

The scene when Draco first entered the dining room the next morning morning had been awkward, to say the least. Upon his arrival all conversation halted, and Draco found himself entertaining the uncomfortable suspicion that the inhabitants of the room had been discussing him. Mrs. Weasley had been the first to speak, fawning over Draco once again like he was the prodigal son, and making him extremely uncomfortable with her affectionate words and gestures until yet another red-head (Merlin's pants, how many could there be!?) suggested that Mrs. Weasley should perhaps ease off Draco a bit before she suffocated him. Draco learned that his redheaded savior's name was Charlie, and the man was indeed another of the seven Weasley children. The table in the dining room was full of other people too, all of whom he recognized from yesterday.

All of them (with the exception of Mrs. Weasley) seemed to be eying Draco warily, as though they were still waiting for him to pull out his wand and start firing curses, or pull up his sleeve and send a signal to Voldemort. Draco felt rather annoyed by this; he was here, wasn't he? Shacked up in a house, if one could even call it that, full of his enemies? He had yet to attempt anything so far. What more did they want from him?

Lupin broke the silence first. "Mrs. Weasley, we need to speak privately with Dra-"

"Oh, no you don't!" Mrs. Weasley interrupted. "The boy just got out of bed yesterday and is still looking far too peaky, you won't be speaking with him until I feel he's ready."

Draco was shocked, to say the least. No one had ever stuck up for him in his life, that he could remember. The Golden Trio were his enemies, constantly at his throat, and between the Slytherins and Death Eaters he had been raised in an 'every man for himself' mentality. Thus, unable to fathom Mrs. Weasley's motherly kindness, he did the one thing he knew to protect himself, his antidote to vulnerability of any sort: he put on his Malfoy air, and blew her off.

"I don't need help from the likes of _you_," he sneered. "I can take care of myself. If they want to talk, we'll talk." Part of Draco felt guilty at the hurt that flashed through Mrs. Weasley's eyes, but he tried to push it away. Vulnerability is weakness, and weakness gets you killed. At least, that's what his father used to say. Of course, his father used to say a lot of things, but from Draco's experience this particular saying seemed to hold true. Just look at Dum- He pushed the image quickly from his mind.

"Fine!" Mrs. Weasley barked. "But not until after dinner, there's work to be done at Headquarters, and since Draco's feeling up to it, he can help too."

Draco's heart sank. Work? They were expecting him to _work_? For cripes' sake, he's a _Malfoy_! Malfoys don't work!

"Well, come along then, come along, we haven't got all day," Mrs. Weasley pushed, leading them all into a room with a fire place and handing them all Floo powder. They each, in turn, dropped the powder into the flames, stepped in, and shouted, "Number 12, Grimmauld Place!" Draco followed suit, leaving Mrs. Weasley to follow behind him. After calling out the address he felt the familiar sensation of swirling in the air, before he landed with a thud, and everything went dark.

* * *

To Draco's disgust, these people _did_ expect him to work. He and the other Weasley children spent the day cleaning the entirety of Number 12, Grimmauld Place, which Draco learned was the headquarters of the anti-Voldemort movement. He was surprised that Potty and Granger were not staying there as well, but apparently both had been taken back to their muggle homes. It did not escape Draco's notice that the Golden Weasel seemed very put out by this, and he soon deduced that the red-head had a thing for the bushy-haired girl. Draco couldn't understand the attraction in the slightest, wanting nothing to do with the annoying, know-it-all Granger, but he tucked the piece of information away in his mind as ammunition to later taunt Ron.

The youngest Weasel-boy had, it seemed, decided to ignore Draco completely, perhaps in some childish thought that if he tried hard enough, his ignorance could make Draco really disappear. This amused Draco to no end, and gave him an easy plan to provide himself with entertainment for the afternoon. He took to taunting Ron every so often, starting with light teasing and getting into heavier material as time went on, until it was everything Ron could do not to explode on Draco and strangle him.

But surprisingly, before Ron had a chance to do anything that afternoon, someone else got fed up with Draco, and the next thing he knew he was on the ground, with yellowish liquid spouting from his nose. He looked up to see the youngest Weasley child standing over him, her fiery red hair shaking from side to side as she yelled at him.

Draco had never been one for romance, and as such had never believed in love at first sight, but in that moment, as he lay there on the floor staring up at Ginny Weasley, he fell in love. Maybe he had just never taken the time to look at her properly until this moment, or maybe he was going insane (he was betting on the latter option), but suddenly, gazing into her chestnut brown eyes, he knew he wanted her; her, and no one but her. Gods, Draco thought to himself, I must be losing it. I'm fancying myself _in love_ with the Weaslette! Maybe she cursed me….

Before his mind had time to process any further, he realized that Ginny was yelling his name. "Malfoy! MALFOY!!!"

"What the hell did you hit me with, Weaslette?" Draco groaned as he sat up, still wiping away more yellow liquid that was streaming incessantly through his nose.

"Bat bogey hex," Ginny replied, annoyance evident in her tone. "And it should've been something worse, considering the filth that's been spewing from your mouth all afternoon."

"Hey, I was just being honest," Draco retorted, throwing in his signature smirk for good effect.

Ginny pointed her wand at him again. "Keep talking, Malfoy, you're just begging for it, aren't you."

"Malfoys don't beg, love," he said, still smirking.

Ginny groaned loudly in aggravation. "Just shut the hell up about my family, or you'll regret it!"

"Ooh, threatening me, Weaslette? You seem to forget who I am… Who I know…" Draco's smirk had disappeared, and his expression was now ice cold. Who did she think she was, threatening _him_?

"You… You wouldn't…" Ginny stammered, and Draco could see the fear evident in her eyes. He felt the familiar rush of power surge through him, the same feeling he got from torturing first years and making others afraid of him. He craved that power; it made him feel alive, invincible. Without power he was nothing. And he needed it now, more than ever, he thought to himself.

"Wouldn't I?" he whispered quietly, so that Ginny just barely heard him, and he could almost see the shivers run down her spine.

But her next move surprised him completely.

"No, I don't think you would," she said, a little more firmly than before, trying to maintain an expression of confidence, though fear still flickered in her eyes.

This wouldn't do, Draco thought. Not at all. He inched closer to her, never breaking his contact with her eyes, until he was standing inches away from her, could feel her breath on his skin… His hand grabbed the collar of her shirt and pulled her even closer so their bodies were barely touching. He could feel her shaking, even though she was trying to stand her ground.

"You don't know _shit_ about me, Weasley. Don't you dare assume you know what I would and wouldn't do." His tone was cold and cutting, but his ice could not tame the fire in her eyes.

"I'm not afraid of you Malfoy," she whispered, pulling away from him, stepping backward towards the door.

"You should be," Draco shot back, glaring at her. "You have no idea what I'm capable of."

"Well it would seem that we both have much to learn, Malfoy," Ginny said cordially, before turning and exiting the room, leaving a very confused Draco behind.

* * *

The incident with the youngest Weasley girl plagued Draco's mind for the remainder of the afternoon. What could she have possibly have meant by challenging him like that? Was she truly not afraid of him? Everyone was afraid of him. He was a Malfoy, a presumed Death Eater. None of his peers dared cross him. Except the Golden Trio, but they had never proved particularly intelligent before. And now Ginny Weasley seemed to think she could take him. Well, he finally decided, he'd just have to prove her wrong.

The next time he saw her was at dinner, and she seemed to have decided to act like the events of the afternoon had not occurred. "Well, two can play at that game," Draco thought to himself. He didn't enter much into the table conversation, still feeling rather uneasy around the crowd comprised of his former enemies, but every chance he got he would send his coldest, scariest stare Ginny's way.

Halfway through the meal he experienced a rude awakening when Lupin informed him that the members of the Order wished to speak to him after dinner in the meeting room. Draco knew what this meant. He was going to be put to trial. Forced to give his story and explain his actions. He would be forced to officially and completely renounce everything he had been raised to believe in, or be thrown out on the street where he would have to fend for himself, at least until the Dark Lord found him and killed him for failure and desertion.

Draco knew that he had to stay where he was, that he needed to remain under the protection of the Order to survive. A Malfoy would never admit fear, sometimes not even to himself, but that night in the tower when he had chosen to run away from the Dark Lord, that was the night he was forced to admit to himself that he was afraid of death. He was afraid of dying, of pain, of what would happen after he was dead. If the Dark Lord had indeed found him that evening, he was sure he would have become a ghost, because he couldn't handle not knowing what would happen when life left his body.

From that moment on, this fear had ruled all of his actions and choices, and now was no different. He would say and do whatever it took to make sure he would be protected. If that meant renouncing his father's ways, so be it. He had been raised to be cold and uncaring, had he not? In any case, his father would have betrayed him without a moment's notice. The least he could do was return the favor. There was no bond of love between the elder and younger Malfoys. Draco had long ago accepted this.

His father had raised him from day one to be his replacement in the Death Eater circle. He had never been shown any sort of love or mercy, only cruelty, harshness and masochism. His mother had been just as cold. Draco always secretly wondered whether she might have shown him love had his father not been in the picture. He knew that his father controlled his mother's actions as much, if not more, than Draco's. Because of this knowledge he had never hated his mother quite so much as his father, but he still had never loved her either. He wasn't even sure that he was capable of love. He had never felt anything that he supposed would be love; what he knew of love was learned from reading poetry and romance novels, books obviously unbecoming for a Malfoy, but his curiosity had been piqued, and so he would often sneak off alone and read.

If it hadn't been for this secret reading, Draco would probably have turned out just as cold and hard as his father, but what he read of love affected him strongly. Around twelve or thirteen years of age, when he had first started reading these novels and poems, he had come to the decision that no matter what, he would somehow have love in his life. It became his ultimate goal. That was why he had never rebuked Pansy's advances, but he quickly found that she did nothing to inspire feelings of love in Draco's heart. After this realization he had tolerated her mainly for the physical pleasure she would provide him, but he knew he had no intentions of taking their relationship any further than this.

From here his thoughts moved to Gi- The Weaslette, he corrected himself. What was it he had felt that afternoon? Was he truly going crazy? Merlin, he had fancied himself in love with her! A Malfoy in love with a Weasley? How laughable. Of course, he thought, name didn't really enter into much anymore, as his father had probably figured out exactly what he had done by now, and if the Dark Lord hadn't killed him, Lucius had probably disowned him. He cringed at this thought. He was fast coming to the realization that he was now in a place where his money and his name alone couldn't save him or even help him. He had never had to rely on his actual character and person to get himself out of any situation before, and now that he thought of it, he wasn't entirely certain that he was capable of doing so. He really needed to find some time soon to sit down and think through everything.

What he really needed to do was write. All respectable pureblood men kept a journal, in which they recorded all their daily workings and dealings, but Draco always ended up recording musings and thoughts, things of a personal nature that he couldn't share with anyone. It was dangerous, he knew, for he always ran the risk of his journal being discovered by prying eyes, but he couldn't help himself. He had to purge all thoughts and emotions in some manner in order to keep himself masked and emotionless the rest of the time. He made up his mind that if he made it through tonight's activities he would ask around and somehow get his hands on a new journal.

Pushing these thoughts from his mind, Draco returned to the task at hand, how to most convincingly assure the members of the Order that he was an ally and not a spy. It couldn't be that difficult, if Dumbledore had promised him protection. But then again, he realized with a sickening feeling, Dumbledore was dead, and he had done nothing to stop it. His one trump card had been removed from his hand. He was brought out of his mind and back to the real world when Mrs. Weasley kindly offered to show him to the meeting room. He looked around and realized that the table had emptied already, meaning that everyone else was seated inside, waiting for him. Feeling queasier than ever, Draco rose slowly and followed behind Mrs. Weasley, who stopped at the door to the meeting room, cheerily wished him good luck, and bustled back to the kitchen to finish cleaning up, leaving Draco standing alone outside the door, heart pounding. He took a calming breath and opened the door, entering the room where his trial would commence.


	3. Welcome to Your Trial

Chapter 3: Welcome to Your Trial

The meeting room consisted of a long, rectangular table with accompanying straight-backed chairs. When Draco entered the seats were almost completely occupied, and everyone seemed to be talking quietly amongst themselves. Nervously, Draco cleared his throat, and the chatter ceased instantly. Taking slow, deep breaths to maintain his composure, he looked to the head of the table where Mad-Eye Moody sat staring at him, his magical eye constantly whizzing around in its socket, periodically turning toward the door as though Moody half-expected a group of Death Eaters to overtake them at any moment.

"Have a seat, Draco," one of the others said kindly. Draco recognized her as his cousin Nymphadora Tonks, the metamorphagus, identity given away by her trademark pink hair. She flashed him a wide grin, not in malice, but in kindness and confidence, as though telling him wordlessly that things would be fine. Draco could not bring his face to smile, so he simply nodded in her direction as he took a seat at the other head of the table, opposite Moody.

Everyone sat in silence for a moment, clearly unsure of where to begin. It was finally Remus Lupin who broke the silence, leaning in from his seat halfway down the table to make eye-contact with Draco.

"Why don't you begin," he suggested, "with how exactly you ended up at the Burrow with Harry and the others?"

Draco sighed. This was the first time he would recount this story, even to himself. He had avoided going over the night's events even in his head, not wanting to deal with the range of emotions that would accompany the mental images. He realized he would pay for it now, because it was extremely difficult to hide emotions as strong as these when even he himself had yet to encounter them. He took another deep breath- he seemed to be taking a lot of those lately, he mused momentarily- before looking around the room at everyone and beginning his tale.

He had already decided beforehand that he might as well tell the truth. Despite his occlumency skills strengthened by years of training from dear Auntie Bellatrix, he knew that he was prone to slip-ups, and didn't want to risk it. And besides, what was the point in lying? He had nothing to hide. He'd done nothing wrong. He wasn't the one responsible for the Headmaster's death, although he had done nothing to stop it, but neither had Potter, so there was nothing to be said for him there.

Slowly, Draco recounted the story of that fateful night in the tower where he and Harry had witnessed the death of the great Albus Dumbledore, how they had fled to find the others and taken a port-key under Dumbledore's orders, and how Draco had passed out and awoken in the Burrow.

He spoke uninterrupted until the end of his tale, and now was when the questions would begin.

"What exactly were you doing in that tower, boy?" Moody growled at him, obviously still suspicious.

This was the question Draco had feared the most, for he knew that this part of his tale would be by far the most incriminating piece of evidence against him.

He was forced to explain the Dark Lord's plan for Draco as an initiation into the Death Eater circle. He told of the Vanishing Cabinets in Borgin and Burke's and Hogwarts itself. He explained, almost with a plead for them to believe him, that he never intended Greyback to be let into the school. With this statement he bravely looked Mr. Weasley in the eyes; he had heard about their eldest son Bill, who had suffered a vicious attack from the werewolf. He explained how the Dark Lord had threatened him, and how he never wanted to kill anyone. At this point, there were tears in his eyes. He couldn't stop them, so he let them come. If anything, he hoped, his tears would give him credibility, which would make up for his loss of dignity.

"What do you mean, you never wanted to kill anyone? Who were you going to kill?" Moody barked. Draco visibly blanched at his harsh tone, and Tonks gave Moody a scorching look, before turning to Draco and smiling kindly again.

"W-well," Draco began shakily, but he found that he could not continue.

"Come on boy, out with it! We've not got all day!" Moody shouted.

"Alastor! Please!" Tonks scolded him. "It's okay Draco, take your time, I know this must be har-"

"Dumbledore! It was Dumbledore! I was supposed to kill Dumbledore! That's why I was in the tower, it was me, the Dark Lord told me to, that was my task, and he said I'd die if I failed, but I couldn't kill him, I couldn't, I didn't want to, he never hurt me, he was the only person that ever seemed to care if I lived or died…"

"Draco."

"…I couldn't kill him, but You-Know-Who was gonna kill me! I didn't want to, I-"

"Draco!" Lupin spoke more loudly, cutting Draco's rant short. Draco was shaking and breathing heavily, having basically spoken in one continuous breath.

"It's okay Draco, we understand. You didn't intend to do anyone any harm. You were in a difficult situation and you were doing what you needed to survive. That's perfectly normal human instinct. We would have been far more worried if you had shown a more reverent enthusiasm for your task. But we need to know what happened that night, in the tower. It's of the utmost importance that we find out."

"If I might make a suggestion," Arthur Weasley began slowly, "due to Mr. Malfoy's obvious distress, perhaps it would be more beneficial if we used a pensieve?" Those around the table murmured their agreement. Draco felt relieved that there was an alternative to him having to verbally recount the events of the night. He was dealing with far too much emotion for his liking, and the looks of pity he had been receiving from various faces in the room throughout his retelling were making him sick.

Though he had strayed from the darker side of the Malfoy nature, he was hard-pressed to change his disposition and demeanor, and Malfoys could not bear to be pitied by others; it deeply wounded their pride.

"Alright, fine then, let's have it," Moody grumbled. Draco pulled out his wand, noticing that Moody's magical and real eyes stayed trained on him, as though he was once again waiting for Draco to attempt some sort of surprise attack single-handedly on a room full of Aurors and other equally powerful witches and wizards. Draco resisted the temptation to role his eyes at Moody's paranoia, though he supposed that Moody had good reason to be paranoid after all that he had been through.

Draco touched the tip of his wand to his head and produced the silver strand that was the memory, and placed it in a vial that had been conjured by Kingsley Shacklebolt, who was seated next to him, and had been oddly quiet throughout Draco's questioning. Draco handed the vial back to Kingsley, who was eyeing him thoughtfully, as though still processing all that Draco had told him and putting pieces together in his head.

"Alright, who's going, then? No sense in all of us watching, someone needs to be here to keep an eye on things," Moody growled out.

"You mean, keep an eye on _me_ you paranoid freak," Draco wanted to snap. But he refrained, still all too aware of the delicate position he was in with these people.

"How about you, Arthur, Kingsley, and myself?" Lupin replied.

"Yes, yes, fine, let's get to it, then," was Moody's grumbling reply.

Kingsley, Lupin, Mr. Weasley and Mad-Eye surrounded the pensieve in the corner as Kingsley carefully tipped the vial in, and they entered the pensieve silently, one after the other.

* * *

The minutes that followed were perhaps the most awkward and uncomfortable of Draco's life. No one uttered a word, many of the room's inhabitants kept shooting him furtive glances as though, like Moody, expecting him to attack at any moment; others, like Tonks, continued to shoot him looks of pity and sympathy. Careful to avoid eye contact with anyone, Draco simply stared at his shoes.

After what seemed like an eternity, the four men reemerged. Lupin and Arthur looked slightly shaken, more so than the two Aurors, but all four men were visibly disturbed by what they had witnessed.

After another mini-eternity, Lupin broke the silence.

"He's right. The boy's telling the truth," he panted.

Minerva McGonagall finally asked the question that Draco was sure had been plaguing everyone's minds for quite some time now, the one they had surprisingly refrained from asking him so far.

"Who was it? Who kil- Who did it?" she asked quietly.

Again, it was Lupin who answered.

"It was Snape," he said quietly, and gasps could be heard echoing through the room. "Snape did it. Severus Snape killed Albus Dumbledore."

It took a few moments for everyone to get over the shock of this information.

"But Severus was on our side! Surely he didn't-"

"I saw it, Minerva," Lupin replied. She looked to the other three men for conformation, and they all nodded sadly.

"The memory was real. We would have been able to tell if it were fabricated," Kingsley added quietly.

More silence followed.

"So what happens now?" Tonks finally asked, looking from Lupin to Moody and back.

"Well, I suppose the boy will have to stay," Lupin said. "It's obvious that he's telling us the truth, and while he hasn't exactly pledged allegiance to our side, turning him out onto the street would be nothing more than an undeserved death sentence. There was nothing he could have done to prevent Dumbledore's death, the memory proved that."

"But you said yourself, he hasn't pledged allegiance to our side! For all we know he could turn tail and run straight back to Voldemort-" Several people flinched. "-who would welcome him back like his own son, what with all he could find out!" Moody said.

"I highly doubt there's a chance of that," Lupin replied calmly. "In any case, Dumbledore promised him protection, and we should honor that promise. If Dumbledore trusted him-"

"Yes, well Dumbledore trusted Snape, didn't he, and look where that got him!" Moody interrupted.

"Alastor!" gasped Professor McGonagall. "Please, show some respect!"

"My apologies Minerva," he growled, "but it is the truth. And considering that we have no reason to trust this miscreant, I don't think he should stay here! It's too dangerous! He's far too much of a liability."

"Alastor, he's only a child. He's no older than my Ron," Mr. Weasley spoke up for the first time. "It's true that he's given us reasons not to trust him, but he hasn't lied to us tonight, and I think that's a step in the right direction. He's just a misguided young man that was faced with a life or death choice. I think he should stay."

"Let's put it to a vote," Kingsley suggested. "Majority rules."

"Fine!" barked Moody. "Malfoy, out!" He pointed at the door with his walking stick.

After having to listen to them talk about him like he wasn't in the room for the last ten minutes, Draco welcomed the escape from all the stares, but he was still nervous. It seemed that there were still those in the room, Moody in particular, that wanted him gone. He knew that Moody was just one man, and if it weren't for the fact that he knew Moody was extremely influential, his distrust would not have worried Draco in the least.

He stepped out into the hall, where it became clear from the sudden scuffling of feet that somebody (or somebodies) had been listening outside the door. After what seemed like hours but might have been merely minutes, the door was opened and Lupin appeared, beckoning him inside.

He retook his seat at the head of the table, attempting to refrain from tapping his foot or fidgeting in any manner that might betray his nervousness.

"Well boy, we've made a decision," Moody growled.


	4. Welcome to the Starting Line

Chapter 4: Welcome to the Starting Line

Late that night, Draco lay awake on his bed, a constant stream of thoughts preventing him from falling asleep. It seemed that an agreement had been reached amongst the members of the Order, a compromise of sorts between those who believed Draco should stay and those who feared he would betray them. The compromise was this: He would be allowed to stay, if he agreed to make an Unbreakable Vow that would (on pain of death, of course) prohibit him from turning against the Order or in any manner supplying information or aiding the Dark Lord or his allies, and would make him promise to aid the Order. The last bit was added at Moody's insistence; he refused to keep someone around if they weren't going to be of use.

They had (rather graciously, in Moody's opinion) given him the night to think about it before responding. He knew it was a tribute to their intelligence and intuition as a whole that they were able to appreciate the enormity of the decision on Draco's part. More or less, they had moved from simply asking him to betray his family and upbringing to asking that he work against them. But he knew this was his only chance at survival. He had to accept their offer. Of course, he'd also thought that he had to kill Dumbledore when if he had just gone to the old codger to begin with he would've never had to worry about it. It seemed he had a habit of running into situations before considering his other options, or just automatically assuming that there were none.

So he paused to consider Option B. He didn't make the vow. He was kicked out. From there he had two choices: attempt to go into hiding on his own, which even he was smart enough to know was a death sentence, even if it would feed his pride. He refused to let pride be the death of him. So that choice was out. The other choice was to go crawling back to Voldemort and beg forgiveness, which may or may not be granted.

Whether or not he was forgiven, he knew that his return would be excruciatingly painful. Several rounds of the Cruciatus Curse from the Dark Lord himself, his father, probably other Death Eaters. He had seen what happened to traitors, even the ones that did return and beg forgiveness. They were brutally beaten, and those that were deemed insignificant to the cause were eventually killed, but not before they had been thoroughly broken. Would the Dark Lord deem Draco worthy enough to keep alive? Or would they simply break him like the others until he begged for death? Draco was not stupid. He knew that the Dark Lord was unmercifully cruel, and Draco didn't particularly relish the idea of being at the other end of Voldemort's wand.

But still, this was what he knew. This was where he was in his element. With the dark. The light scared him; he couldn't understand it. These people cared about each other. Many of them would die for the others. He couldn't comprehend the idea of valuing someone else's life above his own. He had been raised to look out for himself, to trust no one. Moody's distrust of him was comforting in that respect. Death Eaters didn't trust one another. Everyone was the enemy. There was no such thing as friends, and family ties were merely nominal, only of importance if they hinted at an ancestry of anything other than pureblood. The only person that had ever mattered to Draco besides himself was his mother, because she was the only one who had ever cared about him.

But then here was Mrs. Weasley, treating him like her own son, overflowing with affection and caring toward everyone. And there was Tonks, who seemed to care about him too. He knew they were related, but he also knew that his aunt, her mother, had been disowned by his grandparents when she married a muggle. And yet Tonks was friendly toward him, and seemed to care about his well-being. He had done nothing to merit these attentions from either woman, and it confused him.

Hours of thinking came down to this: staying with the Order would force him to step quite far out of his zone of comfort. These people were completely foreign to him, and their ways of living confused him to no end. He didn't like being confused. He liked to know what was going on, where his place was in the world. Staying here would take all of that away from him.

But the alternative was immense pain and probably eventually death, which he had worked hard so far to avoid. And even if not death, complete detachment from the entire human species as he once again crawled back into his shell that had protected him for so long. Staying here offered him a chance to experience those basic human bonds he had never known. Maybe caring was not the death sentence his father had proclaimed it to be. Well, maybe it was for a Death Eater.

But these people seemed to carry on just fine, even perhaps better than those on the Dark Side, and they cared much for each other. And as if to seal his decision, one person in particular entered his mind; the fiery redheaded image of Ginny Weasley. He still wasn't sure what exactly he had felt for her earlier that day. He didn't know what it felt like to love someone, as he had never experienced the sensation before, so he wasn't certain if that was the correct identification of what he had felt. He made a mental note to do some research (Oh Gods, he thought, I'm turning into Granger).

With that last thought, and the final decision to stay being made, he drifted off to a once again unsettling sleep.

* * *

The next morning came far too quickly, and Draco made his way blearily down to the kitchen where he groped around for something edible. His hand landed upon a banana, and it was with great difficulty that he peeled it, his hands and brain seeming unable to cooperate, before mashing it unceremoniously down his throat.

"Merlin, don't you look lovely this morning," a voice tinkled behind him. He grumbled something in response, causing the person behind him to laugh merrily. He turned around to find himself facing Ginny Weasley, who was beaming from ear to ear.

"What's got you so hyper?" he grumbled.

"Well if you must know, Harry's arriving today," she quipped.

"Oh, great. That's the last thing I need to witness, a Potty-Weaslette love fest."

"No one asked _your_ opinion," Ginny huffed, before exiting the room.

Draco was indeed rather put out by the news of Potter's impending return. In all his musings about Ginny he hadn't stopped to consider the most crucial piece of information- she was already in love with the Golden Boy. Draco sighed at the thought. There was no way on earth he could compete with Harry bloody Potter. As much as he had tried to at Hogwarts, he had come to realize that there was no over-shadowing the Boy-Who-Most-Unfortunately-Didn't-Die. Well he at least wouldn't need to bother trying to figure things out with the Weaslette, he consoled himself. That was one less thing he'd need to worry about.

"Wotcher, Draco! Sleep well?" Tonks asked, entering the room and grabbing herself an apple off the basket of fruit from which Draco had retrieved his banana.

Draco bit back a sarcastic comment, remembering the kindness she had showed him the night before (even if he loathed pity). "I slept alright, thanks."

"Good. Well the others should be here soon to- you know," she informed him.

"We'll call you into the meeting room when it's time."

She seemed to have gathered from the fact that he was still even in the house that he planned to stay. Moody had warned him that if he planned on kipping out he'd better not be around the next morning to hear exactly what Moody would have to say about it.

Draco sat down on a rather comfortable chair in the drawing room that he and Ginny had cleaned the day before (although it seemed like weeks ago now), and found himself easily nodding off. Sooner than he would've liked, though, Tonks came and woke him, brightly leading him to the meeting room.

He entered and sat in the same seat as the night from before.

"Well boy, it seems you've made a decision," Moody growled at him.

"I have," was Draco's simple reply.

"So you'll do it then? You'll make the Vow?" Moody fired back.

"I will."

"Alright then. Come here, boy! Quickly, quickly, we haven't all day."

Draco made his way down the room until he was standing next to Moody and Lupin. Lupin, it seemed, would be overseeing the bond, between Moody and Draco. Draco thought fleetingly that he would much rather have been bonded to Lupin than Moody, but there was nothing to be done about that.

Lupin's voice spoke out amongst the deadly quiet room.

"Do you, Draco Malfoy, promise to maintain the secrecy of the location of the Order of the Phoenix, the names of the members of that organization, and all other information of a private nature?"

"I do," Draco replied, looking Moody straight in the eyes, willing himself not to show any trace of fear.

"Do you swear that you will not knowingly make any attempts to contact or aid Lord Voldemort or any of his allies in any manner?"

"I do."

"And do you swear to do all in your power to aid the Order of the Phoenix in the task of bringing down Lord Voldemort and his followers and restoring peace to the wizarding world, whatever the cost may be?"

Draco paused a moment at this one. _"Whatever the cost may be…"_ They were more or less asking him to risk his life for their cause. But he knew he had no choice but to agree.

He took a deep breath.

"I do."

And thus, the Unbreakable Vow was sealed.

* * *

Draco was exhausted but his brain was too wired to allow him to return to his bed for a few hours of sleep. And in any case there was far too much noise in the old house to allow him enough peace for some shut-eye. Everyone was bustling around in anticipation of Harry's arrival. Bloody St. Potter, Draco thought to himself.

Ginny was walking around the house in an almost trance-like state that just served to constantly remind Draco that she could never be his, whether he wanted her or not. He would never win over Potter. Potter was the perfect gentleman and savior of the entire wizarding world. He was just… well, a coward with no name, no money, no family, nothing but the robes on his back. He had absolutely nothing to offer her.

The Order was also in a huge flurry for Harry's arrival. It seemed that the planning had to be very meticulous, because of some sort of protection charm that would wear off when he left his muggle home. Draco thought that the lengths the Order was going to were a bit ridiculous, until he remembered that they were dealing with Voldemort.

Draco wasn't wholly aware of why Potter was of such importance to the anti-Voldemort cause, but he had heard the rumors like everyone else, and he had a feeling that there was more to Potter's story than had been let on so far. He tried to remember if his father had said anything of particular importance after the event in the Hall of Prophecy last year, but all he could recall was that the man had failed miserably and was severely punished, along with Draco and his mother even though they had no involvement in the event.

That was when Draco had begun to realize how much danger he was in. He had always assumed that Voldemort was the most powerful wizard, and that Lucius was one of his favorites, which meant that Draco's family would always be safe. But the weeks following Lucius' failure to secure the prophecy had taught Draco that Voldemort wouldn't hesitate to kill them all if they so much as looked at him oddly. His Aunt Bellatrix, who possessed an obsessive love for her Master, might be spared, merely because Voldemort could trust that she would never betray him, and also because she would never hesitate if ordered to provide him pleasure of a physical nature.

Draco felt queasy at this thought. He knew Voldemort was technically just a very powerful, immortal human, and resided in a human's body, but he had never truly classified his old Master as a human; he was too… inhuman. Monstrous. The thought that anyone could, or worse, would _want to_ give Voldemort pleasure made Draco physically ill, especially considering that said person was his Aunt.

Ever since Draco had arrived at Hogwarts that year he had been constantly trying to plan escape. His fouled-up attempts to kill Dumbledore were intentionally unsuccessful, but he always let Snape believe otherwise. He knew that Snape had taken an Unbreakable Vow with his mother to protect him, for Snape himself had told Draco so. But beyond that, Draco remained unsure of where Snape's loyalties lay. Dumbledore seemed to trust Snape, but so did Voldemort, which meant that Snape was lying to someone, but Draco wasn't sure who, and he was not about to take any risks by confiding in a potential enemy.

Part of his mind had nagged at him all year to go to Dumbledore, but he had seen Dumbledore's hand at the beginning of the year, all blackened and shriveled, and he knew that the curse had been Voldemort's work, for Voldemort had bragged for a week, and it was a source of pride amongst the Death Eaters. Draco's twisted since of logic told him that if the Dark Lord had managed to curse Dumbledore and come away without a scratch, then Dumbledore must be the weaker of the two, and therefore less able to protect Draco.

With a stab of guilt Draco now realized that the Order's side was just as strong, and they had just as much of a desire to win the war as the Death Eaters, and that if he had only followed his gut instincts and gone to Dumbledore, the man would still be alive now. He knew that the loss of Dumbledore severely weakened the Order, that Dumbledore had been their leader and rallying point. Moody seemed to have taken over as the leader, which made since as he was the head of the Auror department now that Scrimgeour was Minister. He was the highest ranking and the most experienced out of the Order members. But even still, as great as Moody was, Draco knew that even he paled in comparison to Albus Dumbledore.

There had been a funeral a few days back, held at Hogwarts, and Potter, Granger and the Weasleys had attended using polyjuice potion to disguise themselves for safety. Mrs. Weasley had offered to bring Draco, but he had adamantly refused. After all that had happened and all that he had caused, he couldn't bring himself to face the man that was dead more or less because of him. He had tried to ignore his feelings of guilt that day, but now he felt them resurfacing.

He didn't want to handle it, to deal with the emotions that tugged at his heart and soul. He wouldn't consciously admit it, but he was afraid of these emotions and of what they would do to him. He had always been told that to feel was a weakness, and while he was working to purge himself of these ideals, some of them had been so ingrained into his head that he acted on them impulsively; like the way he would still make rude comments to one of the many Weasleys without a second thought, because it was just second nature to him.

He knew from past experience that all he needed to do was distract himself, to stay as busy as possible, to keep the emotions at bay. So he decided that, since he had promised to help the Order, that he would join in the plan to transport Harry to the Burrow. When he had approached Tonks with his request to aid them, she had been delighted, but both Moody and Lupin were rather hesitant.

They still didn't trust him, although he could tell that Lupin was at least trying. He had a feeling that this was in part because of Tonks; she and Lupin had gotten married a few weeks ago, and he could tell that Lupin loved her and would do anything she asked of him, and since Tonks was open to accepting Draco, Lupin was trying to be as well. The same could not be said for Moody, who definitely didn't believe in second chances, forgiveness or mercy.

Despite Moody's attitude toward Draco, Draco found it hard to feel ill toward the elder man, mostly because he could too easily imagine all that Moody had been through in his time as an auror, and Draco found that he felt an immense respect for the man. He had never really respected anyone. He had been brought up to respect Voldemort, his father, his superiors, but he never really had. He had faked it when necessary, but beyond that, they had never given him any reason to respect them. They killed without reason, they raped and pillaged and tortured those that were weaker than them, especially muggles, who were defenseless and had done nothing to deserve their fates. So Draco didn't respect them.

Moody, he respected, not simply because his presence commanded respect throught fear, like Voldemort, but because Moody had actually earned it through his valiant attempts to keep the wizarding world safe from people like Lucius Malfoy. As Draco had never loved his father, nor did he idolize him. He had no desire to be like him, to follow in his footsteps, unless this path would guarantee him safety to live his life as he pleased.

Draco had believed this to be so until the events of the previous summer, and had since vowed that he would never be like his father, no matter how much he had to change himself. And something told him that helping to transport Potter would be the perfect way to start; Lucius would never have volunteered for a task unless it would benefit him in some way, especially not a task that would put his life at risk.

So Draco set about attempting to convince Moody and Lupin to let him help.

"I made a promise to help the Order. I intend to keep it," Draco said pointedly.

"Yes, but how can we be sure you won't turn tail and scurry back to the other side?"

Draco groaned in frustration.

"I made a bloody Unbreakable Vow! If I did betrayed you people, I'd die! The whole point in coming over to this side was to prevent that from happening! I have yet to lie to you, why would I start now? I did the best I could to provide you with all the information I had last night, and I've given you no reason not to trust me."

"He's got a point, Alastor," Lupin agreed in his normally calm manner.

"Fine," growled Moody. "But if he so much as thinks about betraying the mission or skipping out on us, I'll hex his-"

"Yes, yes, fine," Lupin interrupted.

"Well then we'll need to fill him in on the plan!" Tonks said brightly.

"I hope you're ready to risk your hide, boy," Moody growled.

"Oh joy," Draco muttered sarcastically to himself.

He was beginning to wonder just what he'd gotten himself into.


End file.
